5-4-Friday… 5 Bad-Boy Footballers

Tomasz Repka.

The first time we played West Ham away in the Championship and lost 4-0 whilst having Matt Jackson and Lee McCulloch sent off, this top hat got away with absolute murder and somehow only got booked. He then had the nerve to take a 20/30 yard de-tour when being brought off to shake the hand of the referee. Obviously that move went down incredibly well with the Wigan following.

Kevin Francis :angry:

Larry LLoyd. If you went past him you were sure to end up in a heap with studs up your arse.

I remember that, I was there. That was the one and only time I left a game early, to go and see some tits in the Flying Scotsman. ;)[/quote]
You mean the pub that was shut after last season’s Arsenal game? (along with virtually every other drinking establishment in London)

Good shout – did he even get booked for that challenge on Dean Connolly???? I was stewarding at that game on the grass verge of the away end & didn’t have the greatest view of the challenge in all honesty but a mate of mine who was the steward on the perimeter wall where the St Andrew’s stand met the town end has always said that it was one of the worst challenges he’s ever seen.
If I remember right it took ages to treat Connolly & get him off the pitch yet the ref blew for full time not long after the game re-started which my mate reckons was done coz the atmosphere down that end got really volatile & the ref bricked it
I do remember the atmosphere being quite bad in the return leg at Edgeley Park as a result & it all kicking off at full time in the away end with stewards & the police

As for bad boys – not quite sure whether they deserve the title but I’ll say Dennis Wise & Robbie Savage. Not especially coz of the stuff they sued to do like sly pinches & treading on people on the refs blind side but coz if someone used to do the same thing to them they went down howling & screaming like a 4 yr old girl
At least someone like Vinnie Jones who used to dish it out could also take it too[/quote]

I was on the terrace at the phoenix stand side, so had a great view of the incident. It was shocking. Connolly should’ve sued, as I think it ended how career.
I recall kids being lead out in tears, and I think their team coach got attacked. The bad feeling was worst I’ve ever seen.

And where is Kevin Francis today?

He’s a policeman in Canada. (source: fourfourtwo magazine last year)

I do remember Connolly playing for Latics again as he played a few in our first season back down in the 4th division & I seem to remember him scoring a winner away at Mansfield. He got released when his contract ended at the end of that season though
In fact I also remember reading Fever Pitch a year later. Aside from the overall memory of it being absolute garbage & very much a “look the middle class can like football too” kind of book I remember one of the chapters being about how so few players make it. He talks about lads he knew at school & uni who were head & shoulders above everyone but never made it & then he goes on to talk about some Arsenal youth team who must have won the FA Youth Cup – names them all & says that none of em were playing professional football any more. Dean Connolly was one of the players named & at the time Hornby wrote it he was still playing (either for us or whoever we bought him off – Barnsley??).
Summed the book up to be honest along with somet else which basically said if the price to pay for clubs going all seater was that a load of lower league teams went bust then so what